| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Cyclists and support for local shops | |
| Posted by: | Charlotte Kasner | |
| Date/Time: | 02/04/19 13:48:00 |
| Rather than being seen as a jolly April Fools day prank, libel is regarded in law as defamation and includes communications made by e-mail, on bulletin boards and on websites. Anyone repeating allegations can be sued also. A legal ruling in 2006 set precedent when it ordered a woman to pay £10,000 in damages for defamatory comments posted on an internet chatroom site. A further ruling in 2009 made in the High Court stated that defamation on internet bulletin boards is akin to slander rather than libel because of the casual nature of the exchanges and relative likelihood of all threads on a post being read. Either way, posting such comments opens up the author to the possibility of legal action and is extremely ill-advised. More to the point it is appalling manners. It is exactly this type of thing that puts potential users off contributing to the debates on this forum. Coincidentally, I was approached by someone on Sunday who told me that she had been horrified at a slur made against me on the forum at a time when the author would have known that I was having a difficult time personally. She said that she would not participate in case she too suffered the same treatment. What sort of indictment of some users on this forum (and our community) is that? Everyone makes mistakes - I made a big one the other day when I mis-read the way that Ruth Cadbury had voted following a parliamentary debate. I made an immediate retraction, thanks to someone pointing out my error. That person could have been abusive and accused me of deliberately falsifying a result, but they recognised that it was probably not the case and gave me the opportunity to respond in a civilised manner and to learn to read more carefully before posting something. The potential for positive communications and exchange of knowledge is something that we should take personal responsibility for protecting. By all means, debates can become heated, but should never decline - or in this case flare up immediately - into personal abuse. It's up to us what kind of forum - and society - we create. This forum is not moderated, so we should all take responsiblity for self-moderation so that this can become a facility that encourages users to participate rather than avoid for fear that they will be subject to intemperate and/or false allegations. |